


N4 - 'I killed him.'

by PinkRambo



Series: Stuckony Bingo 2020 [1]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:14:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27821311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinkRambo/pseuds/PinkRambo
Summary: Things start going missing from Steve and Tony's apartment, and Steve tracks those missing items to someone from his past.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: Stuckony Bingo 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2035894
Comments: 6
Kudos: 27
Collections: STB Bingo: Round One





	N4 - 'I killed him.'

**Author's Note:**

> Dark Prompt turned Light.

* * *

Steve walked forward, the apartment was dark, dreary. It was… strange, something tasted almost… metallic in the air. He wanted nothing more than to take a hot shower and call it a day but there was clearly something going on. Steve swallowed hard and shifted his shield up a little bit more. Something was wrong, he could feel it in the way his stomach rolled and churned.  _ Nervous… _ a feeling that Steve rarely felt anymore. He was a Super soldier for christ sake. He tightened the straps a little more before he cautiously stepped into the living room. Nothing seemed out of place at first glance, but he took a sharper look, eyes narrowed and his body worried. 

Still nothing, except that their arm chair wasn’t as uniform as it had had been when he had left. He swallowed thickly, maybe Tony had just moved it. He couldn’t stop thinking that something was wrong though, that he had left Tony for too long. 

Cautious and silent steps continued forward, one foot in front of the other, until he came to their bedroom door. They had agreed that there was no need for them to have Jarvis in the apartment, a compromise that had taken Tony a long time to get used to. But it was comforting to Steve to know that here, he wasn’t being watched or tracked. 

Shifting the door open, Steve entered the bedroom, shield leading. The bathroom door was open, and he could hear the sound of the shower running. Tony should be here, and the fact that he hadn’t come to greet Steve yet was… concerning. He eased the door open further, and stepped in, seeing the slim man he called his partner in the shower, wiggling and shaking underneath the spray. Steve huffed a soft sigh before he retreated back into the bedroom, turning the lights on, and starting to strip himself out of the uniform. The shield was put on the wall, hung on the hooks that they had there for it. 

Steve sat heavily on the bed, watching the door and waiting for Tony to come back out. Once the man was there, towel around his waist, he smiled, tense and feeling locked up. Tony stepped up to him, with a small tilt to his head with curiosity. “You’re home early.” 

“Yeah, we wrapped up all the loose ends quickly. Come here Tony…” Steve quietly requested, before he wrapped his arms around Tony and just breathed. Tony wrapped his arms around Steve’s shoulders, holding onto him. 

“You alright there Capsicle?”

Steve just hummed his response. 

“What’s got you so worked up? Everything’s fine.” 

Steve shook his head, placing a soft, reverent kiss against Tony’s scar on his chest where the reactor used to be. “No...I just… Something seemed off when I got in. Maybe it just has to do with the last couple days. It’s been rough.”

“What happened?” Tony lightly carded his fingers through Steve’s hair. It was a little bit greasy, but still soft. Tony didn’t mind. 

Steve let Tony go before he stood up to finish getting changed. “Hmmm as much as I want to just crawl into bed with you as is, you kinda stink, so go shower. I’ll go make you something to eat, and we’ll lounge in bed and you can tell me about it.” Tony could tell that Steve needed him to just be mature and not just ramble on at him for hours on end. The soldier nodded, and moved to finish stripping, heading for the shower. 

Fifteen minutes later, Steve was fresh and changing into lounge pants. Tony had a tray of food, already set up in their bed. Steve leaned in, giving the other man a quick kiss before he was settling into the bed with him. He told him about routing out another band of Hydra, about finding out more about what they said was the Fist of Hydra… and that he knew who it was. That it was Bucky. The one man before Tony that he had loved. Steve could remember the talk that they had had about Bucky, about his memories of him back in the war. Tony had understood, hadn’t tried to demand that he forget about him. But Tony had helped him move on, but the knowledge that Bucky was alive had brought everything rushing back up like not a day had passed… 

And despite the fact that this was one of the harder conversations that he had ever had to have with someone, Steve told Tony everything. That if there was even a chance that he could save Bucky then he had to take it. He had to, because even when he had had nothing, he had had Bucky. And Tony understood, knew that if this was Pepper, Rhodey, Happy, he’d do the same. So Tony promised that he would give him all the resources he needed to be able to find his friend. For three months they worked, trying to find Bucky. What they found was a desperate, desecrated, hollow version of the man that Steve remembered. There was a dark feel to him, and every time they tried to convince him to come back with them, he would run from them. It was a hard run for them all, and Steve and Tony both tried to be reasonable. Steve noticed as small things, his things, started to disappear from the apartment. But it was old things, stuff he had reclaimed from the 40’s. 

“Hey Tone?” 

“Yeah Cinderella?”

“Have you seen my dogtags at all?” Steve asked, rifling around on his dresser to try and find what he was looking for. 

Tony walked into their bedroom, looking at Steve curiously. “I moved some of your more important stuff to the safe, why?” 

“Can I see all you put in there? Some of my shit’s going missing, and I’m a little…. Weirded out.” 

Tony nodded and gestured for Steve to follow him before he was spinning the safe open. “Here.” Steve looked through it, but it only accounted for about fifty percent of what he was missing. His dogtags were not in the safe. Steve frowned, before he looked at Tony.

“Someone’s been stealing my things…” Steve sat down on the floor, a little confused as to who could be sneaking in and stealing his stuff. “But it’s specifically the things from the 40’s…” 

Tony’s brow furrowed before he started snapping his fingers at the words that were at the tip of his tongue. He kept at it before he started to pace. “Alright Rogers, I’ve got an idea, but I don’t think you’re going to like it.” 

Steve watched the inventor striding back and forth while he talked. “Okay….” 

“I think it’s Barnes. Your Bucky. Whatever Hydra did to him is coming undone, so he’s looking for whatever he’s familiar with. Which amounts to a grand total of one person here. You.” 

Steve’s brow furrowed just as hard, looking at Tony. It’s as if there’s a lightbulb that goes off before Steve is back on his feet. “Grab a suit, I’m pretty sure I know where he is!” Steve said as he ran for his shield. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Bucky, it was that with Hydra, it was hard to tell when or what Bucky’s mind was going to be like. It was better to be prepared. 

Tony was in one of his Nano suits, before both him and Steve practically dove off the balcony of their apartment, Tony grabbing Steve’s raised hand and carrying them back into the sky. “Wanna tell me where we’re headed there handsome?”

“Back to Brooklyn. Where I used to live with him.” 

Given Tony’s suit, it didn’t take them long to get from Manhattan near the Bronx clear to the other side of Brooklyn. Even if Brooklyn had been upgraded since Steve and Bucky had lived there back in the 1930s, there were still more rundown areas, and that’s where his apartment had been, in one of those rundown areas, and the building itself was scheduled for demolition. Tony set Steve gently down on his feet, and then stood next to him, his nanosuit disappearing from around his form. “Are you sure about this Capsicle?”

“No, yes… I don’t know. If he’s here…” 

Tony reached up, putting his hand on the broad shoulder of his lover. “I’m with you Steve. No matter what.” 

Steve inhaled softly before he let it back out and walked them both to the back of the building and up stairs that had seen better days. There were moments where Steve thought the stairs would give out underneath his weight. He was cautious as they climbed. Tony was right behind him, a gentle and steadying hand to his lower back. 

Swallowing hard, he lets out the breath he was holding with a soft sigh. They got to the door that had been his and Bucky’s apartment back in 1938, and Steve’s eyes were able to catch sight of the door being forced open, and recently. Steve tried the handle and found it unlocked. He could remember talking to Bucky outside of the apartment after they had buried his mom. His throat felt tight, and he eased the door open, stepping in, shield leading. 

“Buck?” He called out. 

“Bedroom Steve, one heat signature. No guarantee it’s Barnes.” Tony whispered to Steve who glanced back and nodded. 

Steve kept moving forward, remembering the layout of the apartment like it was yesterday he had been in here. It had gone through plenty of owners since him and Bucky, but the wallpaper was still the same if dingier than he remembered. He led Tony down the hallway, before he got them to the bedroom. Inside the bedroom, scattered about, was the items that Steve had been missing. Seated in the corner was Bucky, a knife in hand. He was working the seam of his prosthetic and his skin, blood flowing. He had a strip of leather between his teeth, biting down on it. Steve and Tony felt horrified at the vision in front of them. Bucky wasn’t even looking at them, instead just focusing on what he was doing. His metal arm was clenching and unclenching in pain, and finally with a muffled cry of anguished pain, the arm finally came free, clanking to the ground, blood flowing freely from his open wounds. 

Delirious with the pain and blood loss, the leather strip fell from his mouth and he leaned back, tears slowly falling from his eyes. He swallowed thickly, before he opened his eyes, looking at the pair that had just watched the end of that. “S-Steve… I did it. I killed him. It’s over…” Bucky’s voice was slurred as if he had downed a lot of drugs to make it through it. 

Steve dropped the shield and ran over, grabbing the dirty bed sheet that was on the bed and tearing it into strips before he staunched the free flowing wound. “Yeah you did Buck. But I need you to stay awake for me okay? Stay awake. Focus on me, tell me everything. What did you take?”

“A very strong…. Cocktail of… Morphine, codeine, and… I think… some fentanyl?” Bucky slurred, wincing as he felt the pressure against his wound. Tony was next to him, helping him get Bucky patched up. 

“Christ Buck…” He swore softly before he glanced around the room. “Tony, please, gather up all this shit, that’s his bag there, just pack it up. We have to get him to the Tower…” 

“You’re not running to the tower Steve.” 

“It’s safer here then it was when I fucking did it at Azzano!” Steve snapped, and watched Tony recoil. He scrunched up his face in disappointment before he let out a soft sigh. “Sorry Tony, you’re right. I’ll pack, you take him. Please… Just get him to Banner. I’ll see you back at the Tower.” Tony nodded, before his armor was back around him again, and he had Bucky pressed against his chest, and walked out of the apartment, launching into the sky and taking off. The Winter Soldier was dead, if what Bucky had said was any indication, and now it was time to help this man figure out who he was outside of it all. 

And for Steve, he was going to do all of that to help him. He wanted to be able to help him out. Give him that friend that had been so important to him.


End file.
